John Warner, a Confederate soldier, learns that his girlfriend is soon to have his baby. He deserts his regiment the night before a great battle to be by her side. He is then captured and about to be executed when he escapes with the help of two friends. Upon his arrival at Sandoval's home, he learns that she has died giving birth. Her father, Don Pedro Sandoval, blames Warner for her death. He forces him to take the child, sick from an outbreak of Cholera, to leave and never return. The child soon dies. Warner swears revenge on Sandoval and forms a gang of vicious thugs and deserters. The group rampage across the land until the fateful meeting with Sandoval. During a violent battle, the military corners Warner and his gang in a coliseum for a final, grim showdown.

Hilton, who seemed to be more at home in overly silly comedy westerns such as ANY GUN CAN PLAY (1967), MAN CALLED INVINCIBLE (1973) or playing less than serious roles in MASSACRE TIME (1966) and RED BLOOD, YELLOW GOLD (1968) occasionally dabbled in serious roles like THE MOMENT TO KILL (1968) and THE RUTHLESS FOUR (1968). But here, he evocatively portrays a destroyed and broken man who has nothing left but hate. The scenes leading up to the moment Warner joins "the Dark Side", you get the impression he has tried very hard to do the right thing but people around him refuse to allow it. Most notably Sandoval who holds nothing but contempt for Warner.

But when Warner tries to get the occupants of a small town to give him some milk for his sick child which they quickly refuse when they learn the baby is sick from the Cholera outbreak, Warner goes over the deep end. This point is fully realized as Warner buries the dead infant leaving his humanity behind and "living" only for revenge not just against Sandoval, but against mankind. If the Army had only granted him the chance to see his girlfriend a final time, if the town had only helped him save his infant and if only Sandoval had accepted him then maybe things would not have ended up the way they did.

Hilton is excellent in this role and perfectly captures the melancholy and dread you would expect for a man who has totally lost his sanity. Even though by this point, he is clearly not a hero nor an anti-hero but you still feel sympathy for him regardless even in the face of the cruel events he participates in.

Much has been made of Warner's and Sandoval's final confrontation. Reviewers say you are denied the "Bullet for Sandoval" of the title since the two fight inside a holding pen of a rampaging bull. Sandoval is mortally gored by the animal and Warner just watches as the bull mutilates him. First, the films original title is not A BULLET FOR SANDOVAL, second, by allowing Sandoval to be mauled by the bull, the hate within Warner is visualized further. Instead of putting a bullet into Sandoval, relieving him of a more violent, less dignified death, Warner decides to watch his hated enemy succumb to the powerful weight and fury of the wild bull.

Borgnine is also very good as the somewhat unhinged Don Pedro Sandoval. He has nothing but hate for Warner which is incited further with the death of his daughter. Even though I felt he was totally wrong for the part as he doesn't sound anything at all like a Spaniard, he was probably chosen for his marketability anyway. Regardless, he does a fine job making you despise him. Sandoval and Warner share a lot in common in the film as both lose everything over something so miniscule. All because Sandoval refused to accept him as a husband for his daughter, many lives were either destroyed or lost throughout the films running time. In fact, the remainder of the cast is made of similarly lost souls such as cutthroats, deserters and a fallen priest who all join Warner's band of killers.

The ending is handled quite well as the military finally catch up with Warner and his band cornering them inside a coliseum. The group are surrounded in the center with the soldiers lined all around in the seats of the arena. Realizing there is no escape, the gangsters go out guns blazing ending the film on something of a downer.

Director Buch's perfectly captures an atmosphere of dank hopelessness and dread not only by filling his movie with sadistic, heartless characters, but also the presence of Cholera which assists in the frightened nature of some of the individuals in the movie giving weight to their actions. In fact, the film begins unlike a typical western appearing at first glance like a horror film as we see a field littered with corpses and a man cutting a ring from a dead man's fingers. Buch's film seems to revolve mostly around the nature of hate and in that he succeeds as everybody seems to hate somebody in the movie. It's not a perfect film by any means and the final third of the film never quite matches the downbeat theatrics of the opening 30 to 40 minutes which isn't to say the latter portions are any less good, only the action scenes take over peppered with the earlier, more despicable nuances.

Supposedly, it was rumored that Fulci co-directed this film with Buch's but that has been found to be just that, a rumor. The US DVD is quite nice quality-wise, only it's missing something like 10 minutes. Mostly dialog, the cut scenes are present on a Spanish VHS. The additional footage could only enhance this already unappreciated and highly recommended gem. The finest Hilton performance in a western I've seen and it's a shame he didn't get the opportunity to do more in a similar vein.

I wanna see it again myself. I was on here late last night and was thinking about the movie for some reason or other and decided to do a review for it as there wasn't one already. It's an unusual SW, I think. I guess mainly because Hilton is so different here than any other movie he had been in before. Would LOVE to see the uncut version of the movie, though!

Thanks for the excellent review Commissario ,i hadn't been overly impressed from watching an old video a few years back,but i now feel compelled to reassess this on a unwatched widescreen dvd i've had for awhile. :D

I think this film has some really great scenes. It is one of my favorites. When I first started watching Spaghetti Westerns this was one of the first non-Leone movies I saw. At that time (several years ago) I had thought it was just average but I have since revised my opinion upward.

****SPOILER****

The scenes I especially enjoy are: When George Hilton takes his revenge by drowning a hombre in a bucket of milk.Ernest Borgnine being gored to death by a bullThe final showdown in the bullring

I agree that this movie is mean freakin' spirited! Hilton does seem to be a decent guy at the beginning of the film but it does not take him long to shed any redeeming qualities he may have had.I thought Ernest Borgnine mostly acted by yelling and glaring angrily so I was delighted to see him get his due from one pissed off bull. I thought Alberto DeMendoza and Leo Anchoriz were terrific.The version I have of this is put out by VCI. In an earlier post it was mentioned that there are cut and uncut version of this. Does anybody know if the VCI DVD is cut or uncut?Gracias

Thanks Il Commissario. What kind of good stuff did they cut, do you know? Most of the time when they cut, they cut the good stuff.

I know you shouldn't judge a DVD by its box cover but the VCI version has a GREAT picture of Borgnine on the cover. The cover is very gothic looking and Borgnine looks absolutely unhinged and psychotic. It bills itself as " A gritty story of seething haterd..." That it is.

I just watched this one and liked it a lot. Does anyone know if all the VCI releases are the same transfer? I've seen the standalone listed as anamorphic but borrowed my Dad's VCI double feature with ANY GUN CAN PLAY and either it wasn't or at least wasn't flagged properly.

I just watched this one and liked it a lot. Does anyone know if all the VCI releases are the same transfer? I've seen the standalone listed as anamorphic but borrowed my Dad's VCI double feature with ANY GUN CAN PLAY and either it wasn't or at least wasn't flagged properly.

Hmm they're not, I think... i was checking out "Today we kill, tomorrow we die", and according to dvdcompare.net the standalone release is also non-anamorphic, whilst the double feature with "Strangers Gundown" (which I bought) is anamorphic.

But that's just 2nd hand information, I don't know this by own experience.

I'll probably just buy the standalone disc to hopefully be safe. I just found a review of the double feature where the reviewer said he had to adjust the picture mode on his widescreen TV, which is probably just crap wording for he had to zoom it in.

Shame, I was thinking of getting the 4-pack with Strangers Gundown but I wouldn't be surprised if the same disc was in that too.

I have a copy of the Swedish Walthers VHS and in my opinion picture quality is better than the Spanish print. Run time 97 mins.However, the Spanish print's running time is 101 mins so I would probably go for that one to be sure. Not having done a side by side comparison of the two I'm not sure of the differences. Hope that helps.

I have a copy of the Swedish Walthers VHS and in my opinion picture quality is better than the Spanish print. Run time 97 mins.However, the Spanish print's running time is 101 mins so I would probably go for that one to be sure. Not having done a side by side comparison of the two I'm not sure of the differences. Hope that helps.

The swedish VHS is very good ! I have a german fandub, and there are a few scenes from this VHS included ! I don't ha´ve the spanish TV Print, but I've seen Screenshots, and I think the picture quality is a bit sharper than the VHS and the colours are much better !